The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

In a little over an hour Turner Classic Movies is going to show Hitchcock's original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. This version stars Peter Lorre in his first-ever English-speaking role. It isn't as highly regarded as the 1956 version. This is the only film Hitchcock ever remade.

That's the movie. It's only 75 minutes long whereas the 1956 version is 120 minutes.

According to the commentator (which is really interesting by the way) Hitchcock really didn't like this movie and thought the other one was far better.

I haven't seen the other version so I'm going to rate this assuming the other one doesn't exist - which is fair because in 1934 the other one didn't exist.

This movie is pretty good actually. It really shows its age even more than the other B&W films I've seen. There are basically no sound effects (if a guy gets punched it's silent) or non-dialogue noises. The first couple minutes there was just skiing and no dialogue or sound for that matter. I thought it was a silent film at first. When people get shot there's no blood - that's realistic

The plot is interesting and the acting isn't too bad. I liked this and it's probably the best movie I've seen all day (it's the third one).

84/100
B

UP NEXT: Schindler's List

catbox_9 wrote:

According to the commentator (which is really interesting by the way)

TCM = Turner Classic Movies.

Ted Turner is the commentator

LOL. Shows what I know.

I just saw this...

Like catbox, I'll have to rate this assuming that the other version didn't exist. Unlike catbox, I have seen the remake, so this is going to be a little harder.

The plot is pretty basic; someone finds out of a planned British ambassador murder. His daughter gets kidnapped to keep him quite, so now he must try to stop the attempted assassination while trying to get his daughter back safely. While this sounds like an interesting plot, I found the execution to be poor and the acting subpar (with the sole exception of Peter Lorre, who was great). As a result, this is just a very average movie. I can see why Hitchcock wanted to remake this.

73/100